From <http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/synagogue-zodiacs.asp>:
[Go there for many fine pix]
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Jewish Worship, Pagan Symbols
Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues
by Walter Zanger

Ein Harod is a spring that rises in the valley of Jezreel at the foot
of Mt. Gilboa. Gideon gathered his men there to sort out the good
soldiers from the bad ones (Judges 7). From the pool, the spring makes
its weary and meandering way east down the valley for some 18 km,
passing through Beth-Shean to empty into the Jordan River.

A thousand years of neglect had resulted in a valley full of silted
and blocked-up waterways creating a marshy and swampy landscape as the
spring of Harod—and half a dozen other springs that empty into
it—filled the land with water faster than the natural outlets—now
blocked—could drain it.

That was the scene that greeted the first modern settlers of the
valley of Jezreel. And it was obvious that their first task, if they
hoped to farm this land, was to drain the swamps. Thus it happened
that at the end of December 1928 a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha
(founded 6 years earlier) was digging yet another drainage canal when
someone’s shovel started picking up pieces of mosaic.

Work on the channel stopped at once. They called the Hebrew University
(then all of 3 years old!) and within a fortnight Eliezer Lippa
Sukenik1 and Nahman Avigad had begun to excavate the site. Work began
on January 9, 1929, and continued for 7 weeks, until February 26,
despite heavy rains (610 mm instead of the usual 400 mm) that flooded
the valley that year.

The mosaic they uncovered was almost complete, its astonishing
preservation caused by a layer of plaster, thrown down from the
ceiling by the earthquake that destroyed the building, that covered
and protected the floor from the damage of falling stones. When it was
completely exposed, the mosaic measured 28 meters long and 14 meters
wide. It had an inscription at the doorway leading to three panels in
the central apse: a rectangular panel, a square panel with a circle in
the middle, and then another rectangle at the far end.

The middle square, the first to be uncovered, was the most
spectacular. Figures of four women were at the four corners, with
inscriptions (in Hebrew) identifying each as a season of the year.
Inside the square was a wheel, 3.12 meters in diameter, with a smaller
circle (1.2 m) in its center. The wheel was divided into 12 panels,
each with a figure and a name identifying it as a sign of the zodiac.
And in the center, a man was pictured driving a quadriga (four-horse
chariot) through the moon and stars. Rays of the sun were coming out
of his head; it was clear that he was Helios, god of the sun.

What had they found? Could this have been the temple of a Jewish
community (it had to be Jewish; everything was written in Hebrew and
Aramaic) turned pagan? Further digging dispelled that notion, for
there, just above the central square of the mosaic, they found a
mosaic panel of symbols instantly familiar to any Jew of that century
(or this): the Ark of the Covenant (aron kodesh), eternal light (ner
tamid), seven-branched candelabrum (menorah), palm frond (lulav),
citron (etrog), and an incense shovel (mahta).2

Then, in a third panel, closer to the front door, they uncovered a
scene easily recognizable to anyone who knows the Bible. We are in
Genesis 22, and Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac. In case we might
have forgotten our Bible class, the names of the principals—Abraham,
Isaac and the ram—are spelled out in inscriptions above their heads,
and the hand of God stopping the sacrifice is clearly marked with the
words “do not put forth your hand [against the lad].”

So this was definitely a synagogue, a Jewish house of worship, in a
basilica building that dates to about 520 C.E.3 The building was
destroyed in an earthquake soon after it was built,4 hence the
near-perfect preservation of its mosaic floor; their misfortune became
our good fortune. And because Beth Alpha is the best preserved of the
seven synagogues we know, we use it here as the basis for our
discussion.5

Now, of course, we have problems. We know that Jewish life moved to
the Galilee after the total destruction of Jewish Jerusalem that
followed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt of the 130s C.E. We are, therefore, not
surprised to have found—and to keep finding—synagogues from the
following centuries all over the Galilee and Golan. It isn’t the
synagogues themselves that are the problem; it is the decorations in
them. What in heaven’s name were they doing? How could they be making
pictures, especially in the synagogue? Didn’t they know the second
commandment?

    You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of
what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters
under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus
20:4–5)

That problem is not as formidable as it first appears. The second
commandment can be read in several ways because the Hebrew original of
this text is entirely without vowels and punctuation points. We,
writing English, have put in a period after the word “earth.”6 But if
the period weren’t there, the verse could be read as a long
conditional clause: “make no graven images ... which you worship.” In
this case it’s not the making that is prohibited, but the worshiping.
Historically, the Jewish community often understood that it was
acceptable to make images as long as one doesn’t worship them. And
there is, consequently, a long and varied history of Jewish art,
beginning with the cherubim over the Ark in the desert (Exodus 25:18),
recorded presumably not long after the giving of the Commandments, and
without protest.

A second problem is less easily resolved. The zodiac is pagan
religion. It is what we see in the horoscope in every weekend
newspaper on earth, generally the stuff of amusement. We know this
system; it is based on the (extraordinary) assumption that the stars
control the earth and that what happens on earth is a result of
influences from what happens in the sky. All we need in order to
understand the earth (that is, about our destiny) is to understand the
stars. If, according to this view, one knows the exact date and time
of one’s birth, and can chart the exact position of the heavenly
bodies at that moment, then forevermore one knows what is fortunate,
unfortunate, worth doing, worth avoiding, wise, unwise, etc. Our
universe, therefore, is fixed and determined. There are no values, no
good, no evil and no repentance. We live in a great mechanical machine
of a cosmos.

The conflict of interest is obvious, and we are not surprised to learn
that Jews detested that idea. For if the cosmos is like that, why do
we need God giving the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai? The Christians also
had their own very strong reservations. If the cosmos is like that,
who needed God to sacrifice His son for the sins of the world? Who
indeed? The early Church in fact absolutely prohibited the making of
zodiacs, and there is not one zodiac mosaic in a church that dates
before the Middle Ages, and very few even then. The zodiac/horoscope
perception is the antithesis and enemy of monotheistic religion. An
ancient and honorable enemy, to be sure, far older than Judaism and
Christianity, but still the enemy.

It is true that one who goes through Jewish literature with a
fine-tooth comb can find a citation here and there that seems to
recognize the phenomenon of mosaic decoration, presumably zodiac, in
synagogues. “In the days of Rabbi Abun they began depicting figures in
mosaic and he did not protest against it.”7 More to the point, we find
a line in Aramaic translation, “... you may place a mosaic pavement
impressed with figures and images in the floors of synagogue; but not
for bowing down to it.”8 There is even a Midrash that attempts to
justify the zodiac phenomenon: “The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to
him [Abraham]: just as the zodiac [mazalot] surrounds me, and my glory
is in the center, so shall your descendants multiply and camp under
many flags, with my shekhina in the center.”9

But this is surely grasping at straws. The odd line here and there
accounts for nothing in view of the overwhelming opposition in
rabbinic literature to anything related to the making of pictures of
any sort, and doubly so the fierce opposition to anything suggesting
idolatry and pagan worship. Indeed, one of the ways to say “pagan” in
rabbinical Hebrew is by the abbreviation עכומ[ (ovedei kokhavim
u-mazalot,“worshipers of stars and constellations”). The rabbis of the
Talmud recognized the popularity of astrology and were even prepared
to admit that there might be truth in its predictions, but opposed the
whole endeavor on principle. Ein mazal le-Yisrael (literally, “Israel
has no constellation”) is perhaps the most commonly quoted opinion on
the subject,10 but it is only one of many.

All the more are we astonished by the figure of Helios, Sol Invictus,
pagan god of the sun, riding his quadriga right through the middle of
the synagogue! This doesn’t look like it belongs here. And we need to
ask again, what was this all about?

To set our minds at rest (for the time being), we can say what all
this wasn’t. It could not have been astrology (predicting the future,
etc.) and it could not have been scientific astronomy, because the
seasons in the corners are in the wrong places. The upper right corner
at Beth Alpha is marked טבת (Tevet), the winter month, and the upper
left corner ניםן (Nissan) the month of Passover in spring. But between
them you have the zodiac sign of Cancer, the Crab, which falls in
mid-summer, not early spring. The same thing with the sign for Libra,
the Scales. The mosaic has placed it between the spring and summer
seasons, whereas it belongs in the fall. Clumsy astronomy.

The conclusion is inescapable: whoever did this mosaic hadn’t a clue
about real astronomy or astrology, doubtless because he was a Jew and
couldn’t care less.11

For the same reason, this mosaic floor could not have been a calendar,
an idea that has been suggested by several important scholars of the
subject.12 The incorrect placement of the seasons would have made that
completely impossible.

Then perhaps it’s all just decoration, pretty pictures, the common
designs of the era. That is the most common explanation, the one found
in guide books. But it can’t be true. In the first place, the designs
were by no means common in the Byzantine era. The Church, as stated,
absolutely banned their use. More important, these signs are too
loaded with meaning. We might argue “pretty pictures” if Beth Alpha
were a solitary, unique find. We could then, at best, say that we had
found here a group of Jews who had become so Hellenized that they had
slipped over into paganism. But Beth Alpha is not unique; we will
visit half a dozen other synagogues before we’re done. In addition, we
have found hundreds of Jewish tombstones and catacombs from all over
the Roman Empire. And despite the fact that there are countless
millions of possible symbols, forms, designs, pictures, animals, etc.
they could have used, the fact is that they all use the same 10-12
symbols.13 We are forced to conclude that these were more than pretty
pictures.

The Other Three Of “The Big Four”

Hammath Tiberias is the second most famous (and the most technically
accomplished) mosaic synagogue floor.14 We have a zodiac wheel in the
middle of the floor,15 a rendering of Helios riding his quadriga
through the heavens in the central circle, the seasons in the corners,
and the synagogue panel above, between the zodiac and the bema of the
synagogue. There is no depiction of the righteous ancestors theme, as
there was with Abraham at Beth Alpha.16

Actually, the synagogue at Ein Gedi17 (recently opened as a National
Park) is more complete than those of Beth Alpha and Hammath Tiberias.
All the elements we usually look for—and some new ones—are here, in
mosaic on the floor. Except that they are all in lists. There are no
pictures here at all. We have a list of all of the signs of the
zodiac. The ancestors (Adam, Seth, Enosh, Keinan, etc.) are listed,18
as are “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, shalom” and three new righteous
ones we haven’t seen before: Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah19 have been
added for good measure. The other interesting new element in Ein Gedi
is the identification of the zodiac signs with the months of the
Hebrew calendar.2 We didn’t see that at Beth Alpha or Hammath
Tiberias.

That leads us to the newest of the synagogue zodiac discoveries, the
synagogue at Zippori (Sepphoris) in the lower Galilee.21 Discovered
only in 1993, this floor is the most elaborate of the seven floors we
know and contains items not to be found in any of the others.
Unhappily, it is in a very bad state of preservation and most scenes
are only fragmentary.

The zodiac is elegant indeed. Each constellation has its own name and
the name of its corresponding calendar month written right in the
panel. So, for example, we find Scorpio (עקרב) together with its
Hebrew month Heshvan (חשון), Sagittarius (קשת) together with Kislev
(כםלו), and so forth.

There are seasons in each of the four corners, but a new element has
been added here too: Greek inscriptions defining the seasons in
addition to the Hebrew ones we have seen before. And, as in Beth Alpha
and Ein Gedi, the righteous ancestor theme has been well and truly
represented. Again we find Abraham binding Isaac. The scenes are very
poorly preserved, but we have a fragment of the ram caught in the
thicket and at least part of the picture of two servants holding the
ass (Genesis 22:5) while Abraham and his son went off to Moriah.
Helios rides his quadriga in the central circle but, extraordinarily,
there is no male figure in the picture; just the sun itself driving
the chariot.

The synagogue panel, divided here into three sections, is quite well
preserved. The two candelabra flank the Ark of the Covenant with the
ram’s horn, palm frond and citron, and incense shovel in place below.
The Zippori synagogue floor, however, provides several other elements
not found elsewhere: scenes of the ornaments, instruments and
sacrifices of the Temple and an additional (very fragmentary) scene of
the angels visiting Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18). Pity it’s all in
such bad condition. And how fortunate we have been to have found Beth
Alpha so perfectly preserved!

These are the “Big Four” sites we needed to visit. There are three
others that are very fragmentary indeed-some destroyed or changed in
antiquity, others looted and destroyed in modern times, some both.

The “Little Three”

Very little is left of the synagogue at Na’aran, now in the
Palestinian Authority area some 5 km northwest of Jericho.22 Hardly
surprising, the mosaic floor was discovered when the British army was
camped in Na’aran during the First World War and a Turkish artillery
shell fell on the spot, uncovering the mosaic!23 There was a zodiac
wheel here once, and one sees the lines dividing the panels, but the
panels themselves have been defaced. One may find remains of the claws
of Cancer, the Crab, and at least one other sign, Aries, is
identifiable because the caption is preserved even though the picture
is gone.24 Old Helios is gone too, but we find one wheel of his
chariot (older pictures by archaeologists show two wheels) in the
central circle. There were four seasons in the four corners, badly
defaced, and two candelabra flanking the Ark were seen by Père
Vincent, excavator of the site, who sketched them at the time.25

Even less remains in Sussiya. This is a mysterious place, a large
Jewish town high in the Judean hills south of Hebron on the way to
Beersheba. It is a town without a name and without a history—we use
the Arabic name for the place for lack of an alternative—but it was a
big place and it lasted a long time. Very odd. The synagogue building,
large and well built, also lasted a long time, and that longevity was
the undoing of its mosaic floor. Fashions change, and when it was no
longer acceptable to put pictures in synagogues,26 the floor was
ripped out and a new “carpet” of geometric patterns, itself changed
and repaired over time, was laid in its place. But there was a zodiac
wheel here; a piece of the outer arc of the wheel is still in place.
And we know the building was a synagogue because at least two elements
we recognize from other places, the candelabra and the Ark, are still
quite recognizable. The survival of a fragment of the righteous
ancestors panel is even more unexpected. But it is indeed there on the
floor: the tail of an animal and two Hebrew letters “-el” (אל). Surely
that is Daniel in the lions’ den.

We have nearly reached the end of our survey. One more site is left,
and it is so obscure that only the smallest fraction of the synagogue
mosaic remains. The area was a construction site in the Druze village
of Usifiyya, east of Haifa on Mt. Carmel.27 A mosaic synagogue
inscription, flanked by two candelabra,28 was discovered during
construction, together with one corner of a zodiac wheel. The smiling
face of one of the seasons, not identified by an inscription, and a
piece of two zodiac panels— one of them obviously Cancer, the other
unidentifiable—are all that’s left of the zodiac.

A Search for Meaning

What have we found? We have found seven places in Israel where Jews
put zodiac wheels, Helios, the four seasons, a panel of synagogue
objects, and sometimes remembrance of righteous ancestors in mosaic on
the floor of their synagogues. For the record, we have never found a
zodiac in a Jewish context outside of Israel, and every zodiac found
in Israel was in a synagogue.

That fact tells us what we already knew: that these zodiacs were
certainly not just decorations or pretty pictures. Nor were they
attempts at astrology (predicting the future) or astronomy. The Ark,
candelabrum, shofar, etc. were put in synagogues (and on tombstones,
lintels, doorposts and catacombs), the most serious of places for the
Jewish community. And the inscriptions on the zodiacs themselves were
invariably in Hebrew, even if the common languages of the day, Aramaic
or Greek were added. That is, the zodiacs were important and meant
something to the people who made them. The question is: What? It is
time to suggest some conclusions.

The evidence indicates that we are in the presence of a mystical
Hellenistic-Byzantine Jewish tradition, a tradition that Talmudic
Judaism either ignored or suppressed,29 a tradition we would not know
anything about (for it left no literature) were it not for the
discovery of this artwork, these symbols.30 The mosaics are in fact
the literature of the movement. We need to learn how to read them.

Historically, the mosaics were made at a time when what is sometimes
called normative, or Talmudic, Judaism—the Judaism of the rabbis—was
just developing. And it was going a different way.31 We might say that
Talmudic Judaism was moving horizontally: A man walks a path, with God
giving him the Law to tell him what to do and what not to do, how to
stay straight on the path and not stray off. God is pleased when man
obeys and angry when he disobeys. This is the religion of the Hebrew
Bible, and it is what normative Judaism became in the Talmud, the
Middle Ages and, for the most part, up to our own time.

But there was, and still is, a different kind of religion, much older
than the Judaism we have just described. We can call it vertical. Men
always knew that their life depended on higher powers. First and most
obvious, life depended on nature—on seed and growth, rain, sun, moon,
land, wind and fire. That was natural religion; it was what primitive
man did. It was only a short step from there to making each of these
elements into a god. Ancient man thus prayed to rain and sacrificed to
earth, worshiped the moon and adored the sun.

The cosmos was chaotic at first. The gods were busy having arguments
(and orgies) with each other. In between the arguments they could
torture and abuse men, and seduce women as they liked. But nature
became orderly as the Greeks developed science—biology, astronomy and
physics—and tamed the cosmos. They defined the forces influencing
other forces; wind influences clouds, clouds influence rain, rain
influences earth, and earth influences men. Thus the ladder of cosmic
power was taking shape.

On this issue there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that
the regular cycle of nature was pretty grim, not to mention completely
predestined. There was no good and no evil—no value—which is why the
Jews never bought into it. The good news is that the cosmos was also
consoling. Nature was no longer random or dependent on the whim of the
gods. Indeed, the regularity of the cycle of growth and death and
rebirth in nature did give hope for immortality.32 And when Greek
philosophy, following Plato, organized the forms and powers into a
proper hierarchy, with the Highest Form, the First Uncaused Cause,
being God, then the spiritual ladder was firmly in place.

And that, we suggest, is what they were doing by walking into the
synagogue. We see the worshipers climbing the mystical ladder from the
mundane and transient things down here at the entrance—who made the
floor, when, and how much it cost—to a union with God at His holy Ark
up there at the far end.

The first step was through our righteous ancestors. Their good deeds
atone for our sins.34 Then, as we walk farther into the synagogue, we
begin to climb the ladder, encountering the earth and its seasons. We
are among friends; the seasons have friendly, sometimes smiling,
women’s faces. We progress even higher, through the stars and
constellations (the Hebrew word mazal, “constellation,” means luck).
But the vertical path of Jewish mysticism is beyond luck, beyond the
stars. It is beyond even the strongest and most fearful of all natural
powers, the sun. Here is the sun, indeed at the center of the
universe, in a chariot controlled by a charioteer,35 in a vision
recalling Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot (Ezekiel 1). The
charioteer is God,36 in control of the four horses, over and above the
stars and the constellations, that is, over fate and destiny. This is
the God who rules over the moon and the seasons, the rain, the land
and the elements. Four elements like the four horses: earth, air, fire
and water. This is the God who has graciously made a covenant and
given Torah to His people Israel, whose sins are atoned for by the
righteousness of their ancestors.

And that understanding brought the worshiper to the holy symbols of
the synagogue, which is God’s house. That is why, in all of the
synagogue mosaic panels37 depicting the symbols of God’s house, the
Ark of the Covenant is always in the center of its panel, and the
panel is always located right at the foot of the Ark itself.

We have come through our stages of ascent. We are in front of the Ark,
the dwelling place of God’s Torah. Yet the door is always closed. God,
inside, is still a mystery. But our long mystical journey to salvation
is almost over.

All uncredited photos courtesy of the author.
Walter Zanger is a well-known Israeli tour guide who is often featured
on Israeli TV.

Notes
1 E.L. Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth-Alpha, (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1932)
2 The incense shovel was a universally recognized Jewish symbol in the
Byzantine era. It disappeared from the Jewish iconographic lexicon
because the Jews stopped using incense when the Christians started.
3 The Aramaic inscription at the front door was damaged. It says that
the mosaic was made “during the ... year of the reign of the emperor
Justinus”. The exact year is missing. The reference is probably to the
emperor Justin I (adopted uncle and immediate predecessor of Justinian
the Great) who ruled from 518-527 C.E. and whose coins were found on
the site. It is of course possible that the building was older than
the mosaic floor.
4 The earliest possible “candidate” was a major quake that hit the
country on July 9, 551. It was the earthquake that finally destroyed
Petra. More likely was an earthquake of lesser magnitude but located
closer to the site which did great damage to the Jordan Valley in
659/660.
5 We have not entered into a discussion of the artistic merits of this
work of art. It is the writer’s opinion that this work, with its naive
and primitive style, has a child-like immediacy and freshness that
makes it one of the masterpieces of world art.
6 Thus the new JPS Tanakh. The King James translation puts a colon
after the word “earth”, while the New American Bible (Catholic) and
the Revised Standard Version (Protestant) translations both use a
semi-colon instead of period at this point.
7 From a Geniza manuscript of JT Avoda Zarah
8 In the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum to Lev. 26:1
9 From a Geniza fragment of Midrash Deut. Rabba) These quotations are
cited by Michael Klein, “Palestinian Targum and Synagogue Mosaics,”
Jerusalem, Immanuel 11 (1980)
10 The matter is discussed in BT Shabbat, 156a
11 At Beth Alpha the signs and the seasons both progress
counter-clockwise, although they are misaligned. The Hammat Tiberias
zodiac shows both signs and seasons also rotating counter-clockwise,
and in correct alignment with each other. At Na’aran the seasons run
counter-clockwise, as above, but the signs go clockwise!
12 That position was argued by Prof. Avi-Yonah, among many others, and
by the excavator of Hammat Tiberias. See Moshe Dothan, Hammath
Tiberias, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983). Hammat
Tiberias is the only mosaic we know where the signs and seasons are
correctly aligned, which may have influenced the excavator’s judgment
as to its purpose
13 The cataloging of all of these finds and the interpretation of what
they might mean constitute the magnum opus of Erwin Goodenough
(1893-1965), Professor of Religion at Yale and one of the greatest
scholars of religion America ever produced. Goodenough’s 13 volume
study, E.R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, (New
York: Pantheon, 1958), form the core text for the study of this
subject, Everyone who has subsequently dealt with the subject is in
his debt. The book has been re-issued in a 1-volume paperback,
abridged and edited by Jacob Neusner (Princeton: Bollingen Series,
1988)
14 Dothan, op cit. See endnote 6, above.
15 We are amazed to discover that later generations built a wall right
through the middle of the zodiac!
16 A complete description of the 4 mosaics known at the time of
publication: Beth Alpha, Hammat Tiberias, Na’aran and Usifiyya,
together with a comprehensive bibliography, may be found in Rachel
Hachlili, “The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art,” Bulletin of the American
Society for Biblical Research, 228, (1977) , pp. 61-77
17 Dan Barag, Yosef Porat and Ehud Netzer, “The Synagogue at ‘Ein
Gedi”, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration
Society, 1981), pp. 116-119.
18 The text is copied from I Chron. 1:1
19 They are the 3 “children in the fiery furnace”, Shadrach, Mishach
and Abednego, in the book of Daniel.
20 There are, of course, many groups of 12 in the Bible and throughout
ancient literature: 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12
disciples of Jesus, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year,
etc.
21 The synagogue floor is thoroughly discussed in Ze’ev Weiss and
others, The Sepphoris Synagogue, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration
Society, 2005), In this writer’s opinion, however, the authors have
completely missed the point by beginning at the top, the Ark and the
holy synagogue objects, and working their way back out the front door.
The spiritual progression which we discuss requires exactly the
opposite course.
22 The Bible called the place both Na’arah (Joshua 16:7) and Na’aran
(I Chronicles 7:28). Josephus knew it as Nearah (Antiquities. book 17,
ch. 13, para. 1) and the Talmud called it Na’arah (Lamentations R.1:17
No 52)
23 The site was examined in 1919 by the British staff archaeologist,
studied again by Père Vincent & M.J. Lagrange in 1921, and published
by Prof. Sukenik in his book on Beth Alpha (see endnote 1, above)
24The Hebrew word is ??? (taleh), which in modern Hebrew means lamb.
But it was always used for the Ram in the zodiac.
25 This writer has seen the remains of a figure of a man, 2 arms
raised to heaven , with the inscription “Dani[el] shalom”. But that
fragment is not to be found on the site any more. The menorot are said
to be at the École Biblique in Jerusalem
26 The iconoclastic movement in Judaism and Christianity was certainly
in influenced by the uncompromising iconoclasm of militant Islam. But
the trend in Judaism may have been a parallel rather than a dependent
development.
27 The remains of site, identified as ancient Huseifa, were excavated
in 1933 and published the following year by Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah
and M. Makhouly in The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in
Palestine, 3, 1934.
28 The inscription, which is incomplete, reads ???? ?? ????? (shalom
al yisrael), and is on display in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
The zodiac fragment is in the collection of the Hebrew University,
Jerusalem.
29 Only the works of Philo and Josephus, together with some mystical
apocalypses, survive as the literature from the Hellenistic Jewish
world. They survive because of the Christians, who preserved them, not
the Jews, who ignored them. There is no other mystical literature from
the period of the mosaic making which might help us understand what
the mosaic makers meant to say.
30 It would be a safe bet to say that 9 out of 10 Jews living today
(especially orthodox Jews) don’t know, and never knew, that such a
Judaism ever existed.
31 This formulation, from Goodenough (q.v.), ch. 1, has been
extraordinarily useful to this writer.
32 The Jews were not much interested in immortality, but everybody else was!
33 We are not surprised to discover that the oldest known
manifestation of what we might call “religion” is the decorated skull
of an ancestor found under the floor of a house in pre-pottery
Neolithic Jericho.
34 There are any number of examples of pious Jews venerating the tombs
of saints and forefathers. A visit to any tomb of a holy man in the
Galilee, to Elijah’s cave on Mt. Carmel, or indeed to a cemetery where
someone of special interest to one or another Hassidic group is buried
provides a fascinating glimpse into a Judaism which we of the
liberated western world did not know still existed.
35 The origin and symbolism of the Divine quadriga and its connection
to merkava mysticism are discussed in a monograph by James Russell in
the Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 4, (Tubingen 1997).
36 We recall that in the Zippori zodiac the quadriga is driven by the
sun itself, without the figure of a man. Compare Is.60:19ff.
37 Some ancient synagogues, as in Beth-Shean, show only the synagogue
panel without any of the other elements.
Walter Zanger